Topic: Pizza from scratch

[JerryM]

revised tom sauce recipe:



dough - minesamojito's recipe is a good starting point (uses the sponge technique), 65% hydration, 1% Yeast ADY. Salt may be reduced to 5g depends on preference.

day 1
In a bowl add

250g Strong white bread flour
325g Lukewarm water
5g Fast Action Yeast

Mix with a wooden spoon and leave covered overnight.

day 2
The next morning add

250g Strong white bread flour, or replace with an equal quantity of alternative (wholemeal/barleycorn/5seed)
10g Fine Sea Salt

Mix until it comes together and knead for 10 mins (5 mins enough) on a worktop until silky and soft

Oil the bowl lightly with olive/rapeseed oil put the dough in and let rise until doubled (approx. 1 hour)



http://woodovenukforum.forumup.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=6953&mforum=woodovenukforum#6953

[tonybatty]

I built an outdoor wood fired oven 4 years back and use the Jeff Varasano method referred to earlier in this thread. using 20% sourdough starter and no other yeast with the dough being 'aged' in the fridge for 2-5 days depending on how much notice I need.  It produces a great tasting pizza.

It took me couple of attempts to get the starter going mainly because I was too impatient the first time.  I keep a jar in the fridge and rejuvenate it every few weeks or so depending on season.

One of the keys I've found with pizza making is that 'less is more' when it comes to the toppings.

TonyB

[Unclebuck]

I built an outdoor wood fired oven 4 years back and use the Jeff Varasano method referred to earlier in this thread. using 20% sourdough starter and no other yeast with the dough being 'aged' in the fridge for 2-5 days depending on how much notice I need.  It produces a great tasting pizza.

It took me couple of attempts to get the starter going mainly because I was too impatient the first time.  I keep a jar in the fridge and rejuvenate it every few weeks or so depending on season.

One of the keys I've found with pizza making is that 'less is more' when it comes to the toppings.

TonyB

Show us your oven tonyb most interesting

[natterjak]

i used the serious eats method "Donna Currie" of making my own (http://slice.seriouseats.com/sourdough/). i did use rye flour intially to get it going. i now use bread flour.

Thanks for this link Jerry. I'm having a crack at it, currently on day 1 with half an ounce of flour and one ounce of water sitting at the bottom of a pint pot thinking about life.  Hopefully by next weekend I will have thriving sourdough starter and can try a loaf first of all, then move onto a pizza.

[harley]

Is there any pre-made sauce you guys can recommend?

I'm going to be concentrating on the dough part first and just want something pretty decent to put on for the time being. I wateched this video by a pizzamaking.com user
 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=13454.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_OZlp-6IBk

his dough from scratch vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGrkup9ZKwU

he uses a jar of mia cucina marinara sauce. Wonder if we have something similar. Seems tesco do some marinara stuff?

Real eyeopener the pizzamaking site, so many parallels with british curry

[JerryM]

TonyB,

the jeff varasano site was the real breakthrough for me too - i aim to stick to his guiding principles.

the long cold ferment (~3day) i used until i started reading up on Mozza Restaurant and Nancy Silverton (via pizzaquest). this uses an even higher hydration ~78% which i've not got to work as it over ferments too quickly and sticks on the peel. i got round it by reducing the cold ferment to 1 day in bulk and 1 day in boxes whilst reducing the hydration to 70% and the ADY down from 0.2% to 0.12%.

your idea of leaving out the ADY is something i've not tried and could well work for me.

ps the 70% hydration only just about works in my domestic oven and hope to try it out in my wfo this coming year.

best wishes,

natterjak,

couple of pictures (450g jam jar)

[tonybatty]

Uncle Buck,
here's the blog of the build I did with lots of photos of the construction. As you'll see, from the lack of recent entries I'm not much of a blogger
www.batty.me.uk

Jerry,
try it with sour dough starter only, there's certainly enough rise without commercial yeast, and the flavour is fantastic. as I say to all my guests, 'best pizza this side of Rome' and they have to agree otherwise they don't get invited back ;D

Shame about the recent crappy summer weather which meant I only fired the oven up half a dozen times last year.

[Malc.]

here's the blog of the build I did with lots of photos of the construction.

Looks fantastic as did the pizza!

[JerryM]

tonybatty,

i guess you know of the uk wfo site (http://ukwoodfiredovenforum.proboards.com).

me too hoping for better weather this year. my wfo although pretty good remain work in progress.

will certainly try dropping the commercial yeast - increasing the hydration speeds up the ferment but you don't want to reduce the sourdough down to taste - hence have solved a problem for me - many thanks for the idea.

[tonybatty]

Yes Jerry, I'm a mod on that forum which I'd recommend as a good friendly place for anyone interested in building a wfo, thought it does tend to be a bit quiet on there at this time of year.

There's a lot of interest in building/owning a wfo and lots more UK resources available now than when I built mine a few years ago.  At that time I had a struggle to source firebricks which are now almost exclusively imported from China/India, quite amazing given our heavy engineering tradition.  Most of the people I contacted for supplies thought I was a little crazy, well maybe they weren't wrong